


Foiling Dissonance

by Occam



Category: Teen Titans (Animated Series)
Genre: Action, Alternate Universe - Future, Canon Continuation, Cognitive Dissonance, Conspiracy, Moral Ambiguity, Mystery, Theft
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-18
Updated: 2015-12-14
Packaged: 2018-03-23 12:59:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3769378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Occam/pseuds/Occam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Years after Trigon and the Brotherhood, years after Tokyo, the the Teen Titans are no more, having disbanded and scattered into the four winds. Carving out new places for themselves has gone better for some than others, but all have changed in ways they never thought they would. When a conspiracy unfolds in a city where once familiar faces collide, the generation is once again put to the test, with the outcome judging whether or not their new selves are worthy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Opening Moves

**Author's Note:**

> So this is the first work I've posted on here. After years of playing with ideas, I finally decided to go with this one on a whim. Eventually, this will have more of the Titans than those listed in the tags, but I'm not sure how long it will be before I implement them. Or how, for some of them.

(Red X)  
Walking to the edge of the roof, he positioned himself in a good angle and pressed the button on his belt. He flickered into the building across the street. Teleporting like that had always been a little disorienting, one part exhilarating, one part nauseating. He really should send a gift basket or something to that kid who made it one day; he had been taught him a lot about technology, but this suit was pure genius.

He walked down the dark corridor, not bothering with the invisibility function – the thing sapped away Xenothium almost as quickly as teleporting did. Not that it would be an issue for much longer; he was here to lift a supply of the red chemical that would last him for some time. The fact that a client wanted some research files from this lab, whose location he had divulged to Red X had been a stroke of luck.

He couldn’t quite understand the logic of holding a lab that used Xenothium in the middle of a metropolis though. It was true that hiding in plain sight could be effective, but security here was far too lax. Not to mention, the danger working with such a chemical posed to the population. And the heroes liked to talk him down so – he was clearly doing the city a favor by taking the dangerous substance off of the hands of such immoral and irresponsible people. Nevermind that he lived in the city too. And was probably even less qualified on paper to handle substance than the scientists in the lab.

Finally reaching the lab hallway, he raised his hand to the scanner by the door; the X on his palm flashed red and the scanner screeched at him. A noise he was pretty sure it wasn’t supposed to make. Pausing for a second longer, the thing finally stopped, and he heard the doors click. Pushing them open, he made his way down to the basement where the Xenothium was stored. After making his way through another two scanners, he opened the refrigerating container, revealing a treasure trove of the stuff, more than he had seen since his first encounter with Professor Chang back in Jump City.

Eyeing the six containers staring back at him, he unslung the bag that he had on his back. Carefully lifting the entire rack that held the canisters, he slipped it into the bag and sipped it close, putting it on his shoulders once more. He had had to make emergency refills of the stuff before, but preferred not to – spillage was dangerous, and the stuff was hard to find in the first place. Anyway, he wasn’t really suspecting any trouble in the first place, and if any showed up, it wasn’t like he was harmless without his suit powers. He mentally calculated what he could currently afford – one more go of teleportation, about sixty seconds of invisibility, a single barrier-disrupter, tens seconds of a power beam, or a about a half dozen of any given X-weapon, not counting standard X-shurikens of which he could use ten or his blades, which didn’t eat up much given that he didn’t activate their spin function. Otherwise, his night-vision and heat-vision functions didn’t really cost much power, nor did his palm scanner. Oh, and his electric palm, which did actually eat power, but it wasn’t like he ever had to use that one continuously.

Finally having his itch sated, Red X promptly made his way back out of the lab section of the building and began heading for the office of the lead scientist. Whistling to himself, he opened the door to the office, only to see a pink blast heading toward him. Quickly darting back outside, he twirled around so that he was on the wall adjacent to the door frame, pink flash following very closely behind him. As it crackled into the bulletin board on the wall, papers and pushpins scattered everywhere, and the entire bulletin board (which actually quite large) fell off onto the floor violently. Meanwhile, the printer below it, which seemed to have taken some off the blast as it dispersed, busied itself crackled and hissing before emitting sparks and catching fire….which wasn’t particularly good for the hall that was now cluttered with flammable stuff, thanks to the tragedy that befell the bulletin board and it’s many, many papers.

 _Uh, interesting_ , he thought absently to himself. He would’ve put the bag down before going back inside, but, well, the fire probably made that a bad idea. He quickly darted back inside the office, dodging two more blasts for his trouble. After sparing a look behind him to make sure he nothing heavy was going to fall on top of him or that he didn’t have another fire to deal with, he turned to deal with whomever it was that was in here. Normally, he’d have fun for a bit, but the Xenothium in his bag was making him nervous. He didn’t want to see what would happen if one of those pink blasts would do if they hit it – his suit may be resistant to some powers like that, but his bag did not.

“Hey, don’t I know you from Jump? Red X, wasn’t it?” came the voice of his attacker.

“What gave it away?” he asked drily. The suit didn't really make it difficult to guess his moniker. Still, looking at her, she did seem familiar, with her pale skin and pink hair.

She didn't exactly give him much time to think about it, though, as she fired three more blasts in rapid succession. He took care to dodge all of them, as well as the shattering liquor bottles on his right and the falling bookcase to his posterior. He moved in close, hoping she was just a ranged fighter. Or to at the least, minimize how much she could use her power.

 _All that pink. I think I might actually remember her from Jump_ , he thought as he dodged another blast. _Wasn’t her name based off her powers? Hm. Probability-based, from the look of things. Luck? Lucky. That had to be it. Well, if it’s not, it is now._

“Look, Lucky, not that I would love to play some more, but –“

He didn’t get to finish as the girl’s face twisted into a brief scowl followed by a wicked, maniacal grin. The electric pink pulsed in rings around her, giving him a very bad feeling.

“My name is _Jinx_ ,” she said waspishly, before releasing the built-up energy. Not exactly having many options to escape the blast, given the fire (which had actually found it’s way into the room at that point and had begun to feast on the spilt alcohol and books on the floor), he made a calculated risk. Waiting until the blast was almost on him, he activated the teleportation feature, flickering behind Jinx.

 _This dance is beginning to be more than it was worth_. He looked over to find that the computer that had the files he was supposed to collect had suffered the same fate that the printer outside. Sighing, noticed the girl clutching a flash drive in her right hand.

Grabbing her wrist, he briefly pulsed the electric palm function. She let out a short yelp, body seizing for a moment, and as it relaxed, the jump drive fell into his waiting hand.

“Sorry for the shock, _Lucky_ ,” he cracked, then retreated onto the window sill of the open window at the back of the office. Leaping out into the air, he twisted so that he was facing Jinx, and flicking the glowing-eyed girl a lazy wave, he teleported back to the roof of the building across the street.

Activating the zoom function, he saw the girl’s shocked expression turn into an irritated as she herself ran to window and scaled down the building into the street below. Satisfied that he hadn’t left someone to burn to death, Red X turned and ran, springing over rooftops until he got back home.

Once back home, he shed the backpack and made sure his window and doors were all secured. After doing a sweep of the house, he took the Xenothium out of his bag and placed it into his own small lab-grade refrigerator. Taking off the Red X mask and his own mask beneath it (yes, he was that paranoid), he put them on a stand and then proceeded to do so for the rest of his uniform. After a quick shower, he changed into his street clothes and took the flash drive over to his computer, hoping that the girl had been there to do the same job as him – his client hadn’t warned him of possible competitors, but then, they hadn’t really had a sit down conversation about it. The job details had been sent to one of his many contact accounts, and after checking everything out, Red X had just accepted it – the Xenothium being too good to pass up.

One thing the client had been specific about was the files – down to the exact file names, and it seemed they matched up with the ones on the flash drive. He wondered briefly about how his employer had knowledge that specific. It seemed to him that if they knew that much, someone must be on the inside. Then again, maybe they wanted to protect that person – maybe they were that person. Then again, it could be the government using him as a third party to avoid being directly involved with such a raid. It amused him to no end that they took a hard stance on “villains” in the public, but still made use of his services. Then again, he’d never really identified as either hero or villain, and the people he worked his tended to be closer on the morally ambiguous side of things as well. Either way, he doubted it was them – even they wouldn’t willingly hand that much Xenothium over to a criminal.

  
The thing he was really worried about was whether or not the nature of his break-in would strain the deal – a fairly sizable sum of money had been offered in exchange of the files, in addition to the Xenothium, but his thefts normally were more subtle than a trashed office and a burnt hallway. Or building – he’d see what the news said about _that_ matter tomorrow.

Satisfied that everything was still settled for the moment, he disconnected the flash drive and put it in the Red X belt, letting his mind wander to the other villain he had encountered. Thinking some more on her, he finally remembered who she was, beyond her name and rather troublesome powers. She was that Hive girl that had lead a small team in Jump City before the Brotherhood had moved in. She was also the only other villain he knew of beside himself who left the Brotherhood too. Though, he recalled she had defected to the other side whereas he himself had always simply been on his own side. The Brotherhood was amusing for a time, and there were some promising rewards (some of which he claimed) if you worked for them, but the world domination thing was never really something he was about. Something about a tyrannical rule under the Brotherhood seemed really restricting, actually. Not to mention, not nearly as fun as the way things currently were under the status quo – yes, Red X liked things how they were, with the authorities being too slow to keep up with him, the heroes providing a fun diversion along the way, and the thrills and cool gadgets abound that came from the lifestyle of a thief.

He made his way back into the other room, where his suit and Xenothium were, closing the door behind him. He prepped the workbench and himself then grabbed a canister of the Xenothium and laid his suit next to it. While going adding the substance to the suit and running a diagnostic, he wondered to himself who Jinx had been hired by. He decided it didn’t matter. Unless his client refused to take the files, in which case, his competitor might.

Finishing up with his suit, he put it and the remaining Xenothium away, locking the room as he left it. He then decided that he’d spend the rest of the night out, he put on a jacket and headed out of the apartment.

 

(Nightwing)

He waited patiently in the parking garage for his appointment, propped up against his cycle. Which was late. Back a few years ago when he was still Robin, he would have be irritated and tracking down the other party, expecting betrayal. But the years had softened his temperament somewhat, so instead he quietly seethed in moderate annoyance.

About fifteen minutes later and just when he was about to go out and search, he saw a figure coming out of the door on the far end of the garage. A few years back he also would’ve already had a speech prepared to chew said figure out. Not that he didn’t have one tonight, but her arrival made him unclench enough to bite back his anxiety. Small steps.

Still, regardless of her nature, he was glad to see she was alright so he plastered a smirk on his face and called out to her.

“Something go wrong?” he asked.

The pink-haired girl didn’t deign to answer until she had closed most of the distance between them.

“He didn’t go straight for the office when he came inside; he had a backpack on, so I’m guessing he nicked something else from the place first. And then there was the struggle afterward,” she said, smiling as a smirk grew on her face. “That office may as well be a fire-pit. Maybe the floor, maybe the building. Depends on how long the firefighters take.”

He scowled. Being responsible for arson wasn’t really something he had planned on that night. Definitely wasn’t the image he was going for. Sure, he wasn’t the one directly responsible, but he was the one who had planned the mission. Pinching the bridge of his nose and sighing, he asked her to elaborate.

She shrugged. “My powers aren’t always the most predictable, you know?” she said, smirk still firmly in place. “And besides, I had to sell it.”

He shook his head; he knew very well that her powers weren't just limited to probability. He recalled plenty of times where he had been on the receiving end of a "simple" concussive blast. This was what he got for contacting her with this, not that he couldn’t really be choosey at the moment. “So he did buy it? And he has the flash drive?”

“ _Of course_ ,” she said, slightly offended. The scowl lingered on her face. “I don’t think he remembered who I was.”

“He’s pretty self-absorbed. Besides, it’s not really important if he knows you not. He does know me, which is why I needed your help on this.”

She shot him an annoyed look that he pretended not to notice. He put on his helmet. Tossing his spare one to Jinx, he got on the cycle. “Come on. There’s something else we need to do tonight.”

She quirked an eyebrow and gave him a wry look.

“Business,” he clarified.

She rolled her eyes but didn’t protest, putting on the helmet and climbing on the back on the motorcycle. After she was in place, he turned it on and kicked it into gear. The good thing about the his cycle was that it was fast and easily wove through traffic; perhaps, though, the better thing was that is was _his_ , which meant that if people on the street saw it, they got out of the way, meaning he hardly had to do any weaving at all.

He came to a stop outside of a shady little bar on the bad side of town, and they both got off the cycle. He took off his helmet.

Taking off her own helmet, Jinx asked, “So why are we at Jake’s? Doesn’t seem like your kind of place?”

“There’s someone in here I need to speak with. I need you to wait in the alley over there,” he said, pointing at the one next to the club, “I’ll be out in about fifteen minutes. Any longer and something’s wrong.”

She gave him a look. “You brought me here so I could stand in a rank alley while you have a beer and chat up a source?”

“I’m not going in for a beer,” he said, pointedly. “Fine, make it no longer than ten minutes.”

“You know for someone who used to be a team leader, you sure keep things close to the chest,” she replied, not budging.

“For someone who used to be a team leader, you don’t seem to get the whole team thing in general” he shot back.

She gave him yet another look. It should be expected; she never really got over betraying her teammates from Hive. For a moment, he thought maybe he went to far, but she slunk off to the alley, muttering about how two people didn't qualify as a team.

He made his way inside and to the bar and waited for the bartender to get finished with the other patrons. When he was, Nightwing slipped him the other half of the payment he owed him. He usually didn’t resort to buying information off of people, but he was working with a short timeline for this case, and the man was discreet.

“Thanks for the information; it was good,” he said. “So is that guy here tonight like you said he'd be?"

The barkeep nodded and jerked his thumb at a scraggly-looking guy in a hoodie who was nursing his beer at a table nearby. He didn’t notice Nightwing as he walked up to him. He put his hand on the man’s shoulder and gripped hard.

The man jerked his head up in surprise and promptly went further into shock as he saw who was gripping his shoulder.

“Let’s go outside,” said Nightwing, not too harshly yet firm enough to make it clear that it wasn’t a question.

The two walked out of the bar and back outside in front of the cycle.

“So tell me about the job you did last Thursday,” he said flatly.

The man blanched at the request. “I, uh, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He sighed, resisting the urge to slam the guy against the wall and tell him he didn’t have time for lies. “Really? You, two other guys, a knife to truck driver’s throat, followed by a missing box from the back of said truck? Ringing any bells?”

Nightwing could see the man breaking into a sweat at that point, who opened his mouth and croaked out, “R-Randy was the one came to me with the job. W-we didn’t even s-see the guys we were working for.”

“So how’d you get paid? Where did you drop the box off?”

The shaking man suddenly got a look that Nightwing didn’t like. “I’m not going to tell you. You’re – you can’t do anything to me. You’re Nightwing, a hero. I, uh, I think we’re done here.”

“You know I was trained by the Bat, right? Not exactly pacifist, that guy,” he said. Grabbing him by the collar and pulling him close, he growled, “I’m not either.”

Fear and anxiety flashed back over the man’s features, and he swallowed hard. But he still didn’t cave. “You may rough me up a bit. But you won’t kill me. These guys will –“

He heaved a heavy sigh slung the man to the ground. “Fine; we do this your way,” he called out to the alley. Looking back down at the man, he said, “Don’t say I didn’t try to give you a chance.”

At that moment, Jinx’s eyes lit up from the shadows, revealing a grin on her face so large and maniacal, Nightwing had to suppress a shiver as he thought back to the Joker and his days in Gotham. Slowly walking out toward them, she let loose a number of her pink blasts, killing the street lights around them and leaving the place in darkness, save for her glowing eyes.

“Alright, alright! I’ll talk. Whatever you want to know. Just call her off, will you?”

“Alright then,” he said, hauling the man to his feet. “So talk.”

The guy licked his lips and swallowed again, casting an eye back at Jinx. The girl had stopped her advance, but her eyes were still glowing – she was even letting some of her energy crackle off her person for good measure. He had almost forgotten how well Jinx played the part of the maniac – he’d have to remember to bring her along in the future for times like these. He was just fine with playing the part of the intimidator. He always had back with Titans, but there was something about a crazy smile and glowing eyes that loosened people’s tongues fairly quickly.

“We weren’t paid in person. When we dropped the box off, the money was waiting at Randy’s place. Randy said the guy who came to him with the job was, uh, and pretty tall and wore a brown trench coat and sunglasses. That was all he said about him. I didn’t ask anymore than that.”

“Where’d you drop off the box?”

“The old warehouse on Fifth Street at the edge of the city.”

“And did you see what was inside?”

“No, Randy said the guy told him the deal would be off if we looked inside.”

Nightwing let go of the man. “You should probably lie low for a while if you don’t leave town. Either way, these guys won’t be loose in the city for much longer,” he told the guy. Turning the Jinx, he said, “Let’s go.”

The two got on the cycle and left, leaving the dumbfounded man behind on the curb. Pulling back into the parking garage, the both got off the cycle.

“You sure didn’t get much from that,” Jinx said. “Why not ask where that Randy guy is?”

“Dead. Found him over the weekend. And the third one skipped town after he found out.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“There are some security cameras around the area. I’ll go through the recordings and see if I can find something. Maybe check the warehouse in person, see if they left anything behind. I doubt it, but it may be worth it to check.”

She nodded. He expected her to scoff at the detective work, but she just looked pensive instead. Jinx was an odd one. Not that he was really an expert on the human psyche.

“Well, contact me if you need help with any of that. If not, I’ll be waiting for the call when you’re ready to go after these guys,” she said walking off to the door she had walked through before.

Nightwing pressed a button on the cycle; panels shifted and the blue lights went out, leaving him with a nondescript, black motorcycle. He drove it to a personal storage unit and parked his bike in it. Closing the unit, he changed into a set of clothes he had waiting for him, putting his suit in bag, which he slung over a shoulder. Walking back outside, he locked up the place up and walked to his apartment nearby.

Once home, he put up his suit and went straight to the surveillance room. While not exactly the most moral thing to do, he had tapped into the cameras around the city and set up several of his own as well. He found the ones near the warehouse the man had told him about and wound back to when the box had been dropped off, preparing for a long night of staring a camera footage.

It would’ve been nice to have had help, but he didn’t trust Jinx enough. After she and Wally had split up, she had tried to stay with the heroes, but at the time, the core Teen Titans were breaking up, and he was helping Batman deal with a major meltdown in Gotham. So she eventually broke away, showing up in strange places doing questionable things. Sometimes, her story checked out and she was working covertly for some other heroes, but other times it seemed as if she were freelancing for criminal organizations. Hers was an interesting case, though, given that most heroes (even some in the entirety of the Titans) didn’t trust her, and she was blacklisted by large number of criminals associated with those in the Hive and who had teamed up with the Brotherhood. So while he needed assistance, he didn’t trust her enough to bring her back to where his apartment. Though, given what he was dealing with he may have to get over the paranoia– a number of key individuals had gone missing after being targeted by these people. And among them was Rachel Roth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that's it for the first chapter. For anyone that's perhaps unfamiliar with significance of the name Rachel Roth, that'd be Raven. As for anyone wondering about pairings or anything like that, I'm not sure yet. I had something in mind, but when I actually started writing other ideas conflicted with that one. So, we'll see. Either way, I plan to develop the characters and the plot a little more before delving into that. And yes, Red X's identity will be explored in this fic, but I won't say any more on that front for now.
> 
> Reviews would be nice. I'm actually fairly proud of my writing when it comes to non-creative works, but given that I'm more used to writing technical papers rather than narratives, I'm worried that my writing will come across as a bit stilted in this. Something else that's I'm worried about is the blocks of text I have and whether or not readers will have a problem with that - not sure I'm going to be able to do anything with that in this particular fic though because I'm really enjoying exploring the mindsets of the characters and fleshing them out. On that point though, I worry that I'm straying too far from characterization, so commentary on that would be appreciated. 
> 
> Well, as I said, feedback would be nice. This includes critiques (barring outright rude responses) as I'm very much new to this.


	2. Opening Moves Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Nightwing and Jinx spring their trap and Red X has a bad day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I made some minor modifications to my writing style. Hopefully it'll seem a little less stiff now.

(Jinx)

She pulled up the hood around her face as she was walking to the apartment that she had been renting out in the city. It wasn’t really in a great part of town and was kind of a dump, but she wasn’t going to invest in an upscale one unless Blüdhaven worked out. None of the other cities had. Nothing had worked out since Wally.

  
She missed him sometimes, missed the good feeling she got from working with him and the other Titans. Other times, she missed the purpose she’d had as a leader of Hive Five and as a top student of Hive Academy. Back when she had a group that she’d actually felt liked she belonged to.  
Then there were times like this, when she wished she hadn’t bothered with any of them, given her current position – which she hated, loathed more than any other position she’d been in. Even when she’d played the role of the villain and constantly grappled with how she felt about her power (sometimes she still wondered if you really _could_ be a good person with powers of bad luck), she was going places. Even if Madame Rouge had treated her like a second-rate villain – she was constantly driving to the top, excelling (or at least she was when she could motivate her teammates to be halfway useful). And with the Titans, even though she wasn’t ever fully accepted, she was doing important work, making a difference, being important. But where she was now, in the middle ground, she had no traction – a non-entity trusted by no one and going nowhere.

  
She didn’t know how that Red X did it. It seemed like a pointless existence to her. That and while quite capable, Jinx wasn’t a loner – she preferred working in a group.

  
Once back in her one room apartment, she locked the door and flopped down on the bed, sighing. She almost hoped Robin called her back to help him go through camera footage. As delightful as that sounded, she was itching to be doing something. Not just lying around waiting another job call like some puppet.

  
She knew he wouldn’t though; like the rest, he didn’t trust her. Still, Rob – _Nightwing_ was different though. The rest, heroes and villains, treated her like a common freelancer. Even if he did play his cards close, he still treated her like a comrade. Of sorts, anyway. And he hadn’t given her a lecture like she’d been expecting either – the guy had mellowed since he transitioned to Nightwing. She wondered how much it had to do with the goings on in Gotham around the time the Titans broke up.

  
As always, it was odd working in a fully subordinate capacity. Even while in the Hive and later in the Brotherhood, she was in command of her team. The strangeness of having no authority and no control never wore away, not even during her tenure as an honorary Titan.

  
So far working under directly under Nightwing was strange. About a week ago, he’d had someone contact her a few cities over. She’d come, well, because frankly there wasn’t really much else she had to do. Working with him back in the Titans had been strange enough, but actually partnering up (as much as one person ordering around another could qualify as partnership) with the hero was even stranger. She supposed that somewhere in her mind, she had always pictured them as being on opposite sides of the fence. Whatever said fence may be. Still, she felt justified in her mixed feelings – following the orders of a person who’d you once lead a team against _was_ weird, dammit. Like something out of a TV-show.

  
She briefly wondered if they’d make their move as soon as Red X handed over the flash drive. Oh, how she wanted to show that smug bastard that he’d been played. And then blast the hell out of him for that shock to the wrist. That _still_ hurt.

  
Heaving another sigh, she got ready for bed, putting the communicator Nightwing had given her on the nightstand. Once under the sheets she heaved another sigh, only to drift off within the minute.

  
She awoke sometime later to a loud chirping next to her head. Damn communicator. The clock read 5:36 am. She grumbled and slammed her hand down over the thing, picking it up.

  
“Jinx here,” she said, trying desperately to stave off the grogginess from her voice.

  
“X is on the move; I’m on the way, but he’s closer to you than me,” came the tinny response.

  
She sighed inwardly, shooting out of bed and scrambling around to get ready. “Location?”

  
“Moving south on the Little Narrows Bridge.”

  
She paused to remember where that was, doing some mental calculations.

  
“I’ll be on him in ten to fifteen minutes,” she replied. “Keep me updated.”

  
_This would be some much easier if I had a ride_ , she thought to herself as she left her apartment.

  
The communicator chirped again. “He’s moving fast, Jinx. That may not be quick enough.”

  
_What the hell am I supposed to do about that?_ I _can’t teleport_. She looked around on the street and spied a guy walking away from a motorcycle with his keys hooked on his belt with a d-clip. She brushed past him, letting he fingers pulse slightly with her bad luck incarnate. The strap broke, and the keys and key ring fell into her palm.

  
Ducking around the corner, she waited for the guy to disappear into diner he was walking to and then hopped on the bike and sped away. _Nightwing will just have to get over it_. _If he equipped a tracker with a decent battery in the flash drive, this wouldn’t be a problem._

  
It was actually a pretty good bike, and she made good time getting to bridge.

  
“Thought you were supposed to be giving updates or something,” she said loudly into the communicator. “Where is he now?”

  
“Blue Line North, headed east. I’ll probably get there before you.”

  
_Not with this bike you won’t_ , she thought smugly.

  
Five minutes later the communicator chirped again. “He’s stopped at Lanely Point. I’ll be there in about seven minutes.”

  
_Damn, his cycle’s fast_. Still, she was already almost to the site in question, so she braked and parked a ways off as to not alert anyone.

  
So early in the morning, it was still dim and dead silent. Hoping she was still far enough away not to be noticed, she crept up a fire escape and peered out at the scene from the rooftop. A few blocks ahead, she spotted a black car pull up beside an alleyway.

  
While not quite as acrobatic as Nightwing, Jinx herself was actually more so than most of the other heroes and villains out there. She leapt a few roofs before feeling a hand grab onto her shoulder and yank her down.

  
“It’s me,” came a voice before she could retaliate.

  
_Nightwing_. “What the hell is your problem?” she hissed.

  
“Your were being too obvious. Quiet. Stealth.”

  
She glared but didn’t argue.

  
“Follow me,” he said.

  
_His social skills in the field could really use some work_. Then again, she supposed she wasn’t much better back when she had lead the Hive Five. Matching her movements with Nightwing’s, they both made it to a rooftop where they could see the meeting take place.

Red X was propped up against a wall while one man in a dark suit stood motionless in front of him. A third figure had a notebook computer out in one hand, the other tapping away on it. _Going through the files?_

  
“I’m going to need you to distract them.”

  
She eyed him. “What for?”

  
He held up a device. “So I can put this on their car.“

  
_Another tracking device_. She nodded.

  
“Wait here for a two more minutes while I get in position. After that, I shouldn’t need more than a few to get this tracker installed where they won’t notice. And if you get a chance, take back that flash drive too. ”

  
He fled from the roof out of sight. Two minutes passed, and the guy with the notebook had closed it and was talking to the other man in the suit. _Well, here goes._ She took a running leap and landed gracefully just a few feet away from them.

  
Grinning at their surprise, she let loose a concussive blast at both Red X and the man in the suit, sending them both flying backward. She followed up with a hex to a nearby fire-escape, whose ladder swung down, clipping the man with the notebook computer and knocking him off balance.

  
Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted the suited man producing a gun. Whirling to face him, she sent out a hex aimed at the weapon. When it didn’t fire so she guessed she had jammed the thing.

  
She felt something impact her left arm, subsequently binding it to her side. Looking down, she saw it was the doing of one of Red X’s weapons. Grabbing the thing with her right hand, she gave a pulse and it snapped off of her, freeing her left arm.

  
Turning to deal with Red X, she held out both arms wide, each hand letting loose a hex that crashed into the brick walls beside the thief, sending shrapnel and debris flying everywhere. X dodged it, but she had already directed a hex to the asphalt below, slinging the stuff everywhere and knocking the thief back down to the ground.

  
Twisting back around to get the flash drive, she saw that the man who had it was already opening the car door. She grit her teeth. _I can’t afford to rough that car up much. And I can’t just blast the laptop._

  
She took a risk and aimed a blast at the car door window. Starburst fractures appeared in the glass as it shattered and fell to the ground below. The man leapt back from the shattering glass, laptop in hand.

  
Ready for Red X’s attack this time around, she shot to the side just barely dodging some X-shurikens that went soaring to the man in front of her. The shurikens hit the guy, but instead of slicing him up, thet stuck to him in a sticky mess – trapping the laptop in his hands, which was obscured by the sticky red stuff. _He expected me to dodge that._

  
“Sorry, sweetheart, but I don’t get paid if they don’t walk away from here with the merchandise,” came the synthetic voice behind her.

  
_God, this guy is irritating_. She turned back around with a wolfish smile growing on her face. “Not your lucky day then, huh?”

  
Jinx built up energy like she had the night before and watched as Red X flickered away, anticipating a 360 degree burst like the night before. Except it didn't come. And with that, he fell into the trap, as he reappeared on the fire escape where she directed all of the built up energy to the thing.

  
It creaked and groaned violently before beginning its collapse and subsequent descent to the ground below. Jinx dashed and leapt onto the hood of the car  and then over to the man with the laptop, who was busy fleeing the scene. She tripped him and rolled him over, trying to find a way to get to the laptop, all the while hoping the damned fire-escape didn’t fall down on top of her.

  
She heard the car door slam and saw the man in the suit as he backed the car out of the alley – clearly he’d had enough and decided it was everyone for themselves.

  
There was a small part of the laptop visible behind the red adhesive but otherwise no way to get to it in a short span of time. She decided that it was the secondary objective anyway and settled for frying the computer with a hex.

  
Turning around, she saw no trace of Red X, so she assumed that it was a good time to get out of area before the cops were called down on them.

  
“Good luck,” she said looking down at the poor bastard on the ground and took off to find the stolen bike.

  
As Jinx made it to the bike, her communicator chirped. “Don’t go back to the parking garage or to your place. Red X is tailing you.”

  
“Got it.” _Great, just what I needed._ That guy _stalking me_.

  
Racing off on her bike, she headed back toward the bridge. Once across, she found a place to drop off the bike and headed into the subway system, pulling up her hood in to shield her eyes from anyone who happened to look her way.

  
The subway car she was on was mostly empty. Only a few poor souls that had to be at work at an ungodly hour accompanied her, all looking more dead than alive. Something that was not at all helped by the dim, flickering thing that masqueraded as a source of light.

  
She considered having a nap. Sleep during transit always promised that sweet, restful unconsciousness that could only otherwise be achieved by firm blow to head, just without the splitting headache upon waking. Oh, and how she could use some solid sleep. Whilst very cheap, her apartment had walls about as thin as corkboard, and she swore about twice as porous. There was nothing that her neighbors did that she was not privy to – yes, every unceremonious sound they made seemed to exist solely to prevent anything resembling a restful sleep.

  
Unfortunately, no matter how much she longed for it, sleeping on subways wasn’t something that particularly struck her as a good idea. Not that she couldn’t take anyone who happened to be stupid enough to try something, but as someone who knew exactly how bad bad luck could be, Jinx preferred to err on the side of caution. Especially when a ridiculously well-armed criminal that she had attacked on two very recent occasions was tailing her.

  
And on that note, she checked in with Nightwing. “I still have a stalker?”

  
“Yeah,” he said, voice coming in clear. Nightwing’s communicators had always been of stellar quality. She absently wondered if he made them himself or if they were designed by someone else. “He followed you down into the subway.”

  
A not-at-all-malicious grin crept onto her face.

  
“Well, you know, I could always,” she said, letting her words trail off.

  
Nightwing wasn’t amused. As a matter of fact, he sounded quite the opposite. “No. A stolen motorcycle and that property damage is enough for one day. But we’ll talk about that later.”

  
She narrowed her eyes at his response, almost definitely scowling in such a way that would cause the recipient to melt under its scrutiny. If said recipient weren’t a disembodied voice whose owner was safely out of reach. And supposedly trying to help her get rid of a creepy stalker-thief. So she dropped this issue, letting herself fall fully into the task at hand. “So how does one lose somebody who can teleport at will?”

  
“Improvisation. I’m one my way to wherever he was overnight. See his setup and hopefully trigger an alarm that will get him off your trail.”

  
That was actually pretty smart. Provided Red X had such a system. Which he probably did. Not that Jinx would give Nightwing the satisfaction of a compliment. “So, sit here and hope he doesn’t decide to go axe crazy on me in the middle of the subway car. Got it.”

  
“Hey, no one told you you had to take the subway,” came the reply. The amused smugness of his tone irked her further.

  
“Noted,” she wryly responded, pocketing the comm. _Smug bastard sitting on his high horse_ , she fumed to herself. Sighing, she reigned in the feeling once more, reminding herself that he was at least giving her a chance. One that she dearly wanted. Needed, even. Ambition, purpose – the brief tastes of them she had as a freelancer weren’t enough. So maybe for a while she’d just have to play nice with Nightwing. At least until he trusted her not to bring the city down around their ears during a mission.

  
As tempting as it was to blame her powers, she knew better. Besides, the Tamaranean had been walking (er, flying) destruction, but she had managed not to tear Jump City apart when fighting. Mostly.

She huffed. Still, sometimes she did dwell on the fact that it would be much easier to be good if she had some different power. At least the Tamaranean’s blasts weren’t centered specifically around making things go wrong.

But then, whenever she came out of her slumps, her existential crises of morality, she knew she’d never change her power – it was too damn _fun_.

 

 

(Red X)

He braced as the subway car slowed to a halt, jumping down from the back and around to where the stop was and darted inside as a couple of construction workers exited the car. Glancing around, he quickly found the girl. Not that it was overly hard, considering she was the only one inside at the time, but even in a crowd it wouldn’t have been too hard to spot a ghostly pale girl with pink hair sticking out of her hoodie.

  
He glided over to the seat across from her and sat down, taking the time to study her in a place that wasn’t pitch black and while she wasn’t a manic whirlwind of destruction. She was sporting a hooded jacket with a pink stripe going down the side of each arm and non-restricting black pants that suited her acrobatic style. Also gone from the old outfit were the platform shoes she’d worn, replaced with a pair of running shoes, again with the pink and black theme.

  
The doors to the car snapped closed, and he felt the car lightly jostling as it picked up speed. Jinx appeared to be lost in thought, as she leaned her head back with her rather distinctive pink eyes and their cat-like pupils staring off into nothing.

  
_Huh, she’s pretty cute_. _Maybe I should’ve applied to Hive back when I was in Jump_ , he thought. He shook the thought away pretty quickly. Organizations and agendas weren’t his thing, and if he recalled correctly, she ranked fairly highly among the students and headed up a team of her own. Sounded troublesome to him. _What was the point in that? Oh, well._

  
He decided to have some fun and left the invisibility on before finally speaking. “So what’s it like walking around without a mask? Seems like it’d be a pain in public.”

  
The pinkette tensed, body snapping in alert before she quickly regained composure. Still, the composed face and relaxed posture didn’t conceal her eyes darting back and forth to see if she could spot where he was.

  
“You know it’s rude to not make eye contact when you’re speaking with someone,” she said in a level voice.

  
“I might think about it if you promise not to unleash the pink storm of doom on me. I’d rather not die in a crumpled up subway car.”

  
She smirked, replying, “Lucky for you I’m in said subway car then. You’re safe for now.”

  
He turned off the cloaking device, flickering into view and smiling behind his mask as Jinx was unable to suppress a slight widening of her eyes. “So, Lucky, you in this for yourself or are you just a freelancer like me?”

  
A look of disinterest fell upon her features. “Hm?”

  
“Tracking me to my meeting place to steal back to the flash drive. Then destroying it like that to deny those guys the documents. Seems like a lot of work to go through for a freelancer.”

  
“Not all of us let other people do their jobs for them,” she shot back, clearly still sore about their first encounter. “Some of us like to be competent, earn our pay.”

  
“Smug talk for the one who walked away without her target. Twice.”

  
She shrugged in response so he decided to try a different angle. “So if you’re freelancing, who’s the boss?”

  
“Not even you would give up client’s name,” she said. He quirked a smile at the amount of disdain she had managed to pack into the words.

  
“Sorry,” he drawled. “Didn’t know loyalty to client-clientele loyalty to you. Didn't you betray the Brotherhood and join the Titans?”

  
The murderous look he received in response made him twitch. And had the girl’s eyes glowed for a second longer, he may have taken his chances teleporting out of the speeding subway car. She apparently deigned not respond to his comment, and he decided not to press his luck any further on that front. He had very much meant it when he’d said he didn’t want to die crunched up in a subway car, and it felt as though he had very narrowly avoided the pinkette’s breaking of her promise not to bring that fate upon him. Then again, she hadn’t actually promised anything at all.

  
He shifted and opened his mouth to speak again but stopped short as a persistent tone sounded in his ear and the heads up display in his mask flashed a yellow color. _That’s… Someone’s in my apartment_ , he thought darkly. Conveniently, the car was slowing to its next stop.

  
“Looks like this is your _third_ win. Starting to think this is personal, sweetheart,” he said as he stood up.

  
Bad Luck incarnate flashed him a smile and innocently replied, “I’m sure I’ve no idea what you mean.”

  
“Right. See you later, Lucky,” he said, dashing out of the door as soon as it opened.

  
It didn’t really take him long to get back to his apartment – teleportation was nice like that. He had redoubled his efforts to get home when the second alarm sounded, complete with an orange flash, telling him that the room with his Xenothium had been accessed.

  
When he’d gotten back, he was surprised to see that the place hadn’t been completely trashed. Foregoing everything else, he went straight to the Xenothium room and felt himself go icy upon seeing the refrigerator open and empty. Turning around, he went to inspect the rest of his apartment and saw that his computer monitor was on and that it had been recently accessed. A quick check told him that that a few of his files had been accessed, though not many. But it did seem that a few with some account information had been accessed – he was very grateful he’d left his laptop back at one of his places in Jump; if that were stolen, it would truly be a tragedy.

  
Most would have boiled with rage and frothed at the mouth, but Red X was mostly just annoyed. A blow had been struck to his pride and his space had been violated, which was enough to get a rise out of him. But through it all, the thief was tied to nothing – not clients, not bank accounts, not even his Xenothium. Not that he wouldn’t take to wire money elsewhere, close old accounts, set up new ones, and alert a few contacts to the mishaps; but truthfully, money wasn’t hard to find, and if he looked hard enough, the Xenothium could be replaced or stolen back.

  
However, the most painful thing he’d have to do to correct this was empty this apartment and set up a new place to operate from in Blüdhaven. Throughout his career, he’d made quite a lot of money, and his employers came from several different places in the region so he had rented a few apartments in several cities to make traveling easier.

  
Despite the fact that what he most wanted to do was find Jinx and her friend and get his Xenothium back, the other problems took precedence.

He sighed. It was going to be a very long day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning to all, I have general idea of where this is going, but a lot of the ways in which the major points will be reached are still unclear to me. Also, beyond choosing the characters listed because I personally like them, the other characters also seemed more difficult to write. That's not to say they won't be included eventually - they will, I just need time to get a better feel for things. That's a long term thing anyway though.
> 
> Well, thanks for reading. Leave a review if it strikes you to.


	3. Linkage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we finally see Raven and Nightwing...doesn't, at least not directly

(Raven)

     A wave of nausea flooded her system as her head pounded in pain from a migraine. They came frequently and for as long as she could remember – or did they? How long could she remember anyway? She ignored the questions in favor of getting out of her bed and pulling the blinds closed; the harsh, unrelenting sunlight that cascaded in was like daggers in her eyes. Migraines were funny like that. They dulled her senses – denying anything that may normally have offered comfort yet at the same time made them hypersensitive to anything that wasn’t just perfect. Which, as it turned out, was a lot when you had a migraine.

     She slowly turned, taking care not to set off another wave of nausea, and propped herself up on the window sill, observing the room. It was both familiar yet not – she felt as if she had been here before, but something told her that it wasn’t _hers_. Nothing was particularly wrong with it. It was a small room, with a twin-sized bed, a desk next to a door on the opposite side of the room from where she was standing, and a small table with a mirror set up to her left.

     Everything should be fine. Everything seemed fine - but a nagging feeling wouldn’t go away. Like her mind was filled with a haze, leaving her groggy and…defective. _It’s nothing. Get ahold of yourself, – name? I…don’t know my name_. Her heart raced and panic began to set in as she frantically tried to recall some piece of identity, only to come up with nothing no matter how hard she tried.

     She _needed_ to calm down, but not just because the stress had pushed her physical discomfort to the brink. She was getting more and more emotional. And somehow that felt wrong, _bad_ in some way she couldn’t describe. It was like some sort of emotional limiter had kicked in, and her heart started slowing again.

     She felt her mouth opening, vocal chords producing a sound almost against her will, “Azara-“

     “Rachel?” inquired a voice.

     _Familiar… So that’s my name?_

     Snapped out of whatever weird trance she’d gone into, _Rachel_ found her sitting on the floor, legs crossed and arms held out palms-up, her thumbs pressed to her index fingers.

     “Are you alright?” asked the voice again, as its owner stepped into view. It was a woman in about her mid-twenties, mousy brown hair tied back in a ponytail. A look of worry was behind thin-rimmed spectacles and her eyebrows knit in concern. She was familiar, much like the room they were in, maybe this was this woman’s house.

     “I feel a little ill,” she replied flatly. “You asked for Rachel. I’m guessing that’s me?”

     The look of concern shifted into one of pity. “Rachel Roth. What about me? Do you remember my name? Anything at all?”

     Rachel thought about it, staring into the woman’s face only to receive a report of pain that flashed through her head. She winced. “Sorry. I don’t remember anything.“

     The woman shook her head. “No need to apologize, Rachel. My name’s Kylie Miller. We were good friends before your…accident.”

     “Is that why I can’t remember anything?”

     Kylie nodded. “It happened a few months ago. You went missing for a few days and turned up in a ditch just a few miles out of the city. Um. You never really talked about having any family or anything, so I offered to take you in until you regained your memory.”

     She felt herself starting to panic again. “And this was _months_ ago?”

     “Some days are better than others. Yesterday was really good – you almost remembered everything. A few little details were fuzzy – like you didn’t remember some stuff about your childhood, but you remembered more recent years. Like late high school, college, working with me in the coffee shop after classes,” she said all this, faint smiling growing on her face as if she were remembering fond memories. “That’s why I didn’t take it slowly when I first came in. This happens sometimes though; usually after a lot of progress, you’ll have a bad day. The doctor tried to explain it, but to be honest, I don’t really understand it all that well, being an English major and all. Science never made sense to me.”

     “Okay, so it’ll it get better? Tomorrow will probably get better, right?” she asked, as steadily as she could manage. It was good to have someone there to talk to these things about, and Kylie _did_ seem like a friend – something about college and the coffee shop had seemed right. But at the same time, it still felt wrong to let her fear show – like she had an innate fear of fear itself.

     Kylie gave her a soft, reassuring smile. “I’m sure of it. It’ll probably even get better today. Come on, you said you weren’t feeling well. Migraine, right?”

     Rachel nodded and took the hand Kylie had offered her, forcing herself up off of the floor. Her caretaker walked her to the kitchen, where she insisted that Rachel sit on a barstool by the counter while she got her some pills for the migraine and steeped some tea to chase them down and sip on after.

     The tea was Earl Grey and the twinge of citrus tickled her tongue as the hot drink warmed her body, send a tingling wave all the wave down to her toes. Kylie watched her pensively from across the kitchen, sipping on a cup of her own.

     “You feel up to eating? I could make some waffles.”

     Something snapped inside her head and her vision warped and blurred. Inside her head…echoes, voices and laughter both her own and from others, the taste of sweet taste of blueberry waffles coming to the forefront.

     Rachel shook her head to clear her mind. Kylie had come across the kitchen up to the counter.

     “Everything alright, Rach?”

     “Yeah, thought I remembered something for a second. I think waffles would be nice.”

     Her friend beamed back at her. “I thought they might.”

     While Kylie busied herself preparing waffles, Rachel thought back to the voices and laughter. Trying to remember them exactly the way she did when she had the flash, she picked out one, hoping to be able to stick a name or a face to the sounds. Maybe if she could remember those people, she would have some kind of recollection of her life.

     One was a cheerful and bright laugh and belonged to a girl; it made her feel warm, if somewhat smotheringly so. The rest belonged to guys. One laugh was high pitched, glee almost matching the brightness of the girl’s – the more she focused on it, the more conflicting her feelings were about the person in question. On one hand, she was fairly certain she’d wanted to strangle whomever it may have been, but on the other, the was a quiet, subdued amusement that came along with it. _Like a little brother? Kylie said I didn’t really talk about family…_

The last two weren’t sounds of laughter but those of speech. She couldn’t quite make out what was said, but the voices carried as much emotion as did the laughs of the previous two. The first voice was loud and deep and with it came a sense of solidness and reliability of a true friend. The second one was sharper, though not harshly so, and had a smug tone. It was…different. On the surface, it was just as close to her as the others but there was a different type of connection that she felt to this one that she couldn’t understand.

     She must have spent a long time trying to figure it out because when she finally snapped to, Kylie was sliding a plate of waffles over to her.

     “Seemed kind of deep in thought there for second. Remember anything important?” the girl asked through a mouthful of waffles.

     “Kind of. I know you said I never really talked about family, but did I ever mention a brother?”

     “Mmm. Not that I can remember.”

     “I see. I think I remember eating waffles with friends. I don’t know where we were or what they look like though.”

     “Oh. Well, we can go through some pictures I have of some of our friends after we finish eating. Maybe that’ll help you remember.”

     “Thanks, Kylie. If you’re busy I don’t want to take all of your –“

     She shook her head adamantly. “You aren’t interrupting anything. I’m only taking classes part time right now anyway, and it’s an off day for me at the shop. Besides, you’re my friend; I’m not just going to leave you to fend for yourself like that.”

     Over breakfast, Kylie caught Rachel up on her life since they had met. About two years ago, she had started attending a university, which was where the two had met. As was policy, those in their first year had to have a dorm on campus, and they had been roommates from the start. Apparently they hadn’t been friends at the beginning but as the semester moved on and through gradual exposure due to sharing major-related classes, they became good friends.

     She said that they most of their time was split between their coffee shop both during work and rest hours and crashing at friends’ houses, hiding away from general society.

     After they were finished eating, Kylie showed her some pictures she had on her laptop. After going through what seemed like countless photos of them and their friends, Rachel felt a little more comfortable as terms of identity went, and she even faintly remembered a few of the times in the photographs, vaguely recalling each person in her circle of college friends.

     Still, they had gone through countless photos, but none of them connected with the flash of memory she’d had earlier. And even of the memories the photos did trigger, none of them made her feel as strongly as she did about the laughter and voices. Something about that made her feel sad. Maybe they were friends she’d left behind in her hometown?

     They were to the last batch of the photos when something caught Rachel’s eye. They were pictures of a circus, something Kylie said Brian (a third year theater major) had dragged them to, but when she saw the photos, a sadness that was not her own tore through her heart. The longer she looked, the more severe it was, and when they got to a picture of the acrobats, it was like time froze.

     A scene played in her mind but like the sadness, it was not from herself – it was like she was looking through the eyes of another person, feeling things the way the felt, seeing things the way they saw them. And in that moment, she wasn’t herself – she was somebody different. She saw a pair of acrobats soaring through the air, only something was wrong, something happened that shouldn’t have, and she didn’t know quite what. She watched on at the man and woman plunged to the ground and felt icy-cold dread, horror, shock, and a thousand other emotions that she wasn’t supposed to be feeling. Time froze again and the image literally shattered, revealing some kind of dark figure behind it that evoking an all new wave of conflicting, alien emotion before her vision blurred into pitch darkness.

     Eyes fluttering awake, Rachel realized that she was slumped on the floor, head lying next to what she guessed was her own vomit. She was drained, exhausted to the point where her body wouldn’t obey her commands to move, and her head was spinning. Faintly in the background she thought she could hear Kylie’s voice talking in a hushed, level tone, so faint she could barely make what she was saying.

     “She triggered again,” said the voice. “You’ll need to come by ahead of schedule, or I’ll have to sedate her and bring her to myself. We can’t have regaining her identity at this point in the game.”

     Rachel’s eyes widened as she redoubled her efforts to move. She felt a strange energy course through her body and saw pulses of black emanating off of her and wrapping the barstool that she’d been sitting on before she felt a pin-prick in her neck that sent her into unconsciousness.

 

 

(Nightwing)

     Any other time, Nightwing would’ve been uncharacteristically amused – as was always the case when he managed to get one over on Red X. Even if he never did manage to actually catch the guy, he could at least beat him at his own game. Except right now more was on the line than petty rivalry with the thief – Raven was out there, and every day that went by meant another that she might not be anymore. He knew better than to be rash, but he’d been on this thing for too long already, and for all he knew, they had had her for even longer than that. _Maybe it’s time to kick thing’s up a notch. I can’t keep moving this slowly._

     He had told Jinx to meet him at the rooftop of their usual parking garage about ten to fifteen minutes ago. After he’d tripped the X’s alarm and pilfered through what he could in the time that he’d had, he taken the Xenothium back to his apartment. He didn’t exactly have a set-up to handle Xenothium itself per se, but he had some secure storage boxes that would do until he found a better place for it. The files he’d go through later, sure, but they were a low priority and were mostly just to rattle X to maybe give himself and Jinx some breathing room for a little while.

     He found the girl lying back on the ledge in the sun as if she didn’t have a care in the world.

     “Here,” he called out, pulling out a laptop and sitting on the ledge next to her.

     The pinkette swung around into an upright position with a slack grin plastered on her face. “So mission success?”

   He gave her a noncommittal grunt, holding out to see whether or not the driver would dump the car and too worried about that to berate Jinx for her recklessness in the alley.

     “So dark and edgy today,” teased the girl, leaning over to get a better of screen as it displyed the movements of the tracker on map. “Wow, out of the city already. Road trip?”

     “Unless it’s a dumpsite.”

     “Then why aren’t we on the road now? Even if he dumps the car, he’ll have to get back to his base of operations somehow.”

     He’d thought about that before but mulled it over again upon Jinx’s suggestion. He came to the same conclusion he'd had before. “Even if the guy does dump it, it’ll leave behind some kind of clue. But if he’s not going to and we spook him, he definitely won’t lead us to wherever he's working out of.”

     She nodded along quietly. And then yawned rather obnoxiously, stretching as her arms and legs shot out in all directions. Her eyes narrowed as she turned to face him again. “You didn’t you sleep at all, did you?”

     “I caught thirty to forty five minutes,” he replied, eyes never moving from the screen. He felt a punch to the shoulder that derailed his train of thought.

     “I got three to four _hours!_ How are you more awake than I am,” complained the pink-haired girl.

     Truthfully, having been up for a little over two days, Nightwing was exhausted. But there were things to be done, and after years of training and pushing his body past its limits, exhaustion had become something to be shrugged off, not succumbed to. So, reflecting this fact, and perhaps not wanting to give Jinx the satisfaction of knowing he was almost definitely more tired than she was, he shrugged and went back to watching the laptop.

     She yawned again. “So. You ever going to tell me why we’re going after these guys? Or what they’re doing?”

     “I’m not sure what they’re doing exactly. That’s why I wanted you to see if you could get the flash drive back. Should’ve just had you make two copies.”

     “Okay, so why did you start looking into them if you don’t know what they’re doing?”

     “I traced several missing persons reports and illegal shipments back to them.”

     “Ah,” said the girl thoughfully. “Who’d they target?”

     He sighed, thinking about whether or not he really wanted to let her in on everything. _There’s not really any reason not to. She’s helped out, and other than being a little too liberal with her power usage, she’s not as bad as a lot of other heroes are saying. Maybe I should just give her a chance._

     “Look you don’t ha-“

     “Raven. And several others, a lot with ties to other heroes.”

     There was a brief pause before she spoke again. “How long?”

     “I’m not sure. That’s why I can’t stop, won’t slow down until this is done.”

     “We’ll find her,” she said, using soft tone that he would’ve said didn’t suit her until just then. “But it’s not going to mean anything if you fall apart along the way. I doubt they’re just going to hand her over. Or the others, for that matter.”

     “Yeah,” he responded, “I know.”

     “That means you’re going to need to sleep at some point. I’m not doing this job on my own if you go brain dead, Nightwing.”

     “I’ll sleep. After we check out the places where this guy finally stops.”

     “And if she isn’t there? Or if it’s well-guarded when we get there?”

     The concern was odd. Then again, she had been a leader once too. _Old habits, huh?_

The thought made him concede. “Alright. I still want to check this place out today, but we won’t make any moves on it unless they’re packing up and leaving or if any of the people they’ve taken are in immediate danger.”

     After that, she nodded but didn’t press any further. It was odd having someone look out for him again. The partnership thing was new altogether – it was different than working on a team. And his time with Batman hardly counted. He resolved to trust her more.

     About twenty minutes later the tracker finally stopped moving. After waiting to make sure it wasn’t just a temporary stop, he roused Jinx, who had lied back down and dozed off.

     “Road trip?” inquired the girl.

     “Looks like it.”

     “This mean I get to steal another ride?” she asked, mischievous grin on her face.

     He shook his head sternly. “No, you can ride on the back of mine.”

     He noticed the subsequent rolling of her eyes, but he couldn’t be sure of whether it was because of his lack of humor or genuinely because he didn’t support grand theft auto. In light of that uncertainty, he declined to comment, as he wasn’t really sure he wanted to know the answer.

   His mind quickly shifted to the task on hand as the pair neared his cycle and mounted it. _On the way, Rav-_

His thoughts were interrupted as a torrent of pain descended down upon his head, and he dropped to the ground writhing in agony. There was a mental image that flashed before he blacked out – the death of his parents.

 

 

(Jinx)

     Jinx looked down in a mixture of shock, confusion, and panic at the Nightwing, who was currently writhing around on the floor of the parking garage whilst clutching his head in pain.

     She spared a quick look around to make sure it wasn’t some sort of direct attack by anyone nearby. Not seeing anyone or anything that had caused this, she turned her attention back to him.

   “Talk to me. Tell me what’s happening,” she said, desperately wondering what was going on with him. It was useless though, as his eyes glazed over momentarily before closing.

     _Shit, shit, shit._ Getting a handle on her nerves, she checked for a pulse and felt relief flood through when there was one. _So what was up with that?_ _And_ now _what am I supposed to do?_

     She thought briefly about lying him over the back of the cycle and maybe driving back to her apartment before ruling that out as a bad idea. Fortunately, he seemed to wake up as quickly he had…glitched.

     “Jinx?” he asked weakly, immobile from the floor. He still seemed to be in pain or was at least severely drained.

     “I’m here,” she reassured him. “Are you still hurting?”

     “Not like I was. Too raw to tell right now, really. Need to get somewhere.”

     “Yeah. Think you can stand?” she asked. The answer was almost assuredly “no,” as she was fairly certain she had to lift him off the floor herself and then act as a living crutch to get him over to his cycle.

     She helped him on, and he put his hands on the handlebars of the cycle and started it and then pushed a button, turning it the thing into what appeared to be a more normal-looking motorcycle.

     “Your brain must actually be fried if you think that you can get anywhere driving that thing right now. More so if you think I’d actually let you try.”

     He shook his head weakly. “Palm sensors. Only turns on with my gloves.”

     It was her turn to shake her head. “You would have those.”

     She climbed on in front of him and felt as he slumped behind her, looping his arms around her to hang on.

     “So where do you want to go? I can take you to my place. Or if you want to go to your place, you can give me directions.”

     The was a pause as he seemed to think it over.

     “Yours,” he croaked.

   “Okay then” she said. _Going to have to trust me eventually._ Then again, given the fact that she didn’t wear a mask, perhaps that was the issue right now. _Now’s not the time to dwell on that._

     “Wait,” came his voice, as relayed an address.

     A little while later, they arrived at a storage unit. He hobbled over to the thing by himself, motioning for her to stay put. After opening it, he disappeared inside and closed the thing back, only to reemerge a few minutes later in street clothes and a sunglasses. Once out, he motioned for her to park the thing in the unit and thereafter locked it back up.

     “I can walk to my apartment from here,” he said. His voice was clearer now but still very weak.

     “No,” she said firmly. “I’m not leaving you alone after that.”

     “And. And what will you do if it happens again?” he challenged.

     “More than you’ll be able to.”

     He seemed to give up on the argument. “Come on. And pull your hood up. I don’t want the other tenets to see your face.”

     “That’s no way to speak to a lady,” she joked. But she complied, pulling the hood up to attempt to conceal her identity. As for her eyes, well, if they ran into anyone, she’d just have to do a lot of staring at the ground.

     A few minutes later, they arrived to the apartment building, and Nightwing sans costume guided her up to his apartment. Once inside, he quickly collapsed onto the couch where he fell into a deep sleep.

     _Great_ , she thought. _And now what I am supposed to do?_

 

(Red X)

     Meanwhile, somewhere else in Blühaven, Red X sans suit stared a his belongings all packed into cardboard boxes.

     _Great. Now where the hell am I going to go?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> Review, if you please.


	4. Prep Work

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jinx meets an old face, and Rachel comes to in a strange place.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for long wait, despite my earlier comments about updates. Between life and writer's block (read: amateur writer w/no forward thinking), working on this has been hard to get in order. Hopefully now that I've found my flow again and winter break is here, I'll be able to get updates out in a more timely fashion.
> 
> This chapter has let me open things up a bit more concerning the specifics of exactly how I'll be moving the plot forward to accomplish exactly what I have in mind in terms of major events and character development
> 
> Sorry for the wait and thanks for reading!

(Jinx)

The amount of good karma she was going to get for not snooping around in Nightwing’s apartment surely was astronomical. Two hours in and the unconscious lump on the couch still hadn’t so much as twitched. The shitty excuse for a television show she had been watching was beginning to drag, and she had finished the two slices of pizza she had liberated from the refrigerator.

The apartment itself was very spartan – nothing personal on display. And (she may or may not have checked…and double-checked) the doors leading out of the living room into other parts of the apartment were definitely both locked. Not that she couldn’t get past said doors if she really wanted to, but she doubted Nightwing appreciate the breach of privacy.

She was just beginning to think that she’d take her chances when a chirp sounded. Looking down at her communicator, Jinx realized that it wasn’t hers but Nightwing’s that was going off. Weighing her options, it was obvious that she had to answer it. ' _I mean, what if there's an emergency that needs to be tended to? Innocents that needed saving? First and foremost,_ me _from this hella_ _cious boredom that's been gnawing away at me.'_

She held down the answer button and began to speak, but the person on the other end was quicker. “Nightwing. Arsenal here. We need to meet up – I think I found a lead for you, but I’m in a bit of a jam right now. So if you could, uh –“

“Nightwing is— Nightwing’s _indisposed_ at that moment. Jinx here,” replied the pinkette into the communicator. “What can I do you for, uh, Arsenal?”

“Jinx? Crazy clown girl with the pink hair? No thanks. What the hell do you to the songbird, psycho?” came the sharp response.

It really never got old, being on the receiving end of that no matter what circle she ran in. Suppressing a sigh, she replied, “Have fun in your jam, kiddo. Sorry if it slips my mind to let _songbird_ over here you rang.”

“Listen. Nightwing may be an over-achieving, arrogant shit, but if you’ve done anything to him, I’ll find you and –“

“Sounds like you have problems of your own,” she purred back, hearing gunshot reports in the background. “But if you’d shut up for a second, I’d let you know that we’re working together. And I was going to offer you a hand, but I guess you’ve got it covered.”

An explosion went off on Arsenal’s end, as if to help make her point. The jackass didn’t respond for a bit, and she thought maybe he’d eaten it.

“Wait, you’re working for him?” finally came his incredulous response. Another explosion. “And here I thought Nightwing’d never be stupid enough to make the same mistake twice.”

She made a face, but his voice came through before she could pop off another response. “Well, I guess you can get started getting on my good side if you come to the north side rail. I may or may not have brought some company with me.”

Jinx had half a mind to leave him to his fend for himself. But Nightwing would be upset if he woke up and found out his buddy had gotten shot up in his city. She sighed. “Thrilling. Be there shortly. Switch the call code to 15386 and keep me posted on your location.”

“Don’t keep me waiting,” was Arsenal’s terse response.

‘What an asshole.” Grabbing her own comm, she put Nightwing’s on the side table next to the couch.

She weighed her options. Going on foot, it would take far to long to get to Arsenal to help. Stealing a ride again didn’t seem like fitting behavior, at least to Nightwing's standards. On the other hand, borrowing Nightwing’s cycle seemed like a much better idea. Rummaging quickly through the bag he'd brought up with him, Jinx found the Nightwing gauntlets and slipped them on, hoping they’d be enough to activate the cycle.

Grabbing the keys on the way out, she locked the door and ran down to get to where the cycle was parked. Using the key to the door, she opened it and hopped onto the cycle, bracing as it hummed to life when she activated it.

The subsequent ride to Arsenal’s location was equal parts thrilling and terrifying. The Nightcycle could generate a truly awe-inspiring amount of torque, and it handled like a dream, but there was only so much speed she could handle and still, you know, keep the thing on the road. And not through another car. Or light post. Or wall.

That being said, Jinx was pretty sure that she’d almost gotten her face shot off when she rolled up in the middle of the crossfire. As in gunfire. From both parties. Making a side note to ask about the whole hero and gun thing later, the pinkette aimed a hex at the nearest pissed off, gun-toting mook and watched as his assault rifle burst in a flash and fell apart. The other three that were with him apparently took that as a cue to find cover, as two scrambled behind a car while the third ducked behind the corner of a building.

Unleashing another volley of pink hexes, a lamp post leaned over, falling across the car the first two had taken cover behind. One of them darted out from the car and fell almost just as quickly as a gunshot went off. Looking around, Jinx noticed the first man she’d attacked had also gone down, clutching his leg.

She looked back over to find a man with long hair in a red cap, domino mask, and a sleeveless shirt to match vault over the car, gun in hand, and then signal a thumbs up.

“Maybe I misjudged you. Let’s chase down that fourth one. Cops’ll be here to pick them up soon. Already called ‘em,” he said cheerily, as if he hadn’t just shot two people.

“Are you insane? You mean they’ll be here to pick up some bodies if these guys bleed out. Not the kind of thing Nightwing is down for; why shouldn’t I just leave you here?”

Arsenal shrugged. “They’re all flesh wounds ;as long as these guys keep pressure on them, it’ll be fine. Now wait here while a get the last guy.”

‘ _Nightwing’s going to kill me. And wasn’t that a bow on his back? Is this, what was his name back then? Quickie?_ ’

A gunshot later, the red-clad “hero” came out from around the corner, dragging his latest victim. The telltale sound of sirens came within hearing range, and he dropped his burden and darted toward the cycle, hopping on behind her.

“Take me away, officer,” he said cheekily.

Rather than chew the bastard out, she opted to promptly flee the scene, going to the direction of the parking garage she and Nightwing normally met. She didn’t think the guy could take two people finding out where he lived while not in uniform in one day.

After she parked and he got off, she swung around, propping up against the cycle. “So you want to tell me what that’s all about? Shooting people isn’t exactly the _modus operandi_ , if I recall. And you _are_ taking full responsibility when we bring this to Nightwing. I won’t be held accountable for pulling you out of the fire.”

“Look who’s wearing her white hat again. Nightwing has you all in shape, huh? Well, he may buy the new leaf act again, but I don’t,” he said, staring her down. “And like I said, I wasn’t shooting to kill or even seriously maim, for that matter. They’ll be fine. And I can handle things with Nightwing, so you can stop worrying about covering your own ass now.”

“I’m not interested it arguing about my allegiance. All you need to know is that I’m working with Nightwing,” she replied, wishing desperately that Nightwing would step out of the shadows and deal with this dickhead so she could be done with him. “Now, you said you had something?”

Arsenal shook his head. “No, what I have is for Nightwing. Not anyone else. So where is he?”

“Busy. If you want to wait around for him to be up for meeting you personally, that’s your prerogative,” she said, swinging her right leg back around the cycle.

“Go if you want, but if you think I can’t track you, you’re kidding yourself.”

Her eyes narrowed, though only briefly as a mischievous thought crossed her mind. Bringing up her left hand, she snapped, pink energy crackling as the light fixture overhead came crashing down on top of the red-haired hero. After checking to make sure his condition was stable, she hopped back on the cycle and sped off, looking forward to the next few hours sitting on Nightwing’s couch watching shitty television.

 

(Raven)

Her whole head sloshed. And whenever she opened her eyes, it was so hazy that she felt the urge to vomit every time she tried to focus her vision. Which was why she had them tightly shut at the moment, but her cognitive functions were slowed so much that it took almost all of her concentration to make sure her eyes were closed. So much so that she had actually forgotten why she was focusing on keeping them closed at least three times and opened them anyway only to get sick all over again.

'… _ven_ ' whispered a voice on the edge of her mind. She honed in on the voice and mumbled a reply.

' _Raven_ ,' said the voice again. It was a familiar voice, but there were echoes that made it difficult to place where she knew it. Colors flashed despite her eyes being closed and the voice (voices?) spoke again, as if to complement the colors. ' _Remember. Don’t—_ '

“Miss Roth?”

A new voice. Louder. Close. She forced an eye open, seeing the vague shape of a person in front of her. The best she could get out was a weak grunt.

“Miss Roth, you’ll feel a slight prick soon, but everything will be okay. It should clear your head a little bit,” informed the voice.

She didn’t really understand what he was saying, but there was a sharp pain that rippled through her entire body after. She curled inward and the nausea came back.

Some time later, her head felt lighter, clearer. Opening her eyes once more, there stood a bearded man in his fifties in a lab coating, peering down at her.

“Ah, hello there, Miss Roth,” greeted the man. “I’m Doctor Hellfern. It seems you’ve have quite the rough time.”

“Mmn, where am I?”

“You passed out and were taken here, to the hospital. We’ve been keeping you here for the past twenty-two hours. Tell me, what do you remember last?”

“I. I’m not sure. I was with a friend, I think. Having breakfast, maybe?”

She looked up to the doctor’s face to see if she was on the right track, but all she got in return was a cold, calculating gaze. “Try not to strain yourself overmuch, Miss Roth. We wouldn’t want to risk your condition now that you’re approaching stability once more.”

There was something else she remembered, but it was more of a feeling – like nightfall enshrouding her in in a sort of comfortable detachment. But, given the doctor’s response, she opted to keep that to herself. “Uhm. So what was wrong with me, exactly?”

“It seems that you suffered from a severe bout of hyperventilation. I believe your records say you have a history of this – I recommend that you avoid getting over-emotional in the near future.”

“I see,” she said. “How long—“

Red flashed through her head. ‘ ** _Let me out_** ,’ growled a voice in her head.

Yellow flash. ‘ _The doctor is disingenuous. You’re more than they tell you you are. Your second name is—_ ‘

Pink. ‘ _Whoo-hoo! She can hear us again!_ ’

Gray. ‘ _Um. M-maybe we should just. Stay quiet. That doctor is watching us…_ ’

“Miss Roth. Is there something wrong? I believe I did just ask that you not overtax yourself emotionally.”

“Sorry,” she replied. “Just still a little drowsy from the medicine, I guess.”

The doctor’s face pinched up and he muttered something under his breath. “Well, should you have any problems, feel free to press the button to your right, and someone will come to check on you.”

Without waiting for her response, the doctor walked briskly out of her hospital room, closing the door behind him. Miss Roth focused on trying to find the voices again, trying everything from talking aloud to herself like a lunatic to thinking as hard about colors of the rainbow trying to get the voices back.

Unfortunately, it seemed as if she were not only prone to hyperventilation but also hearing voices. Still, that one voice had clearly not trusted the doctor, and she didn’t either. So the obviously they weren’t all bad. On the other hand, she hadn’t even gotten to ask how long she was to stay here, either.

Idly, she wondered where her friend was. The one who’d been there when she’d hyperventilated. She couldn’t remember her name. In fact, the only reason Miss Roth had remembered her own name was because the good doctor had been kind enough to bestow it upon her before he chose to abandon her to her wonderings.

She thought back to the first voice. Well, at least the first one that had been clear. The red one – it had sounded so angry. Almost certainly the kind of emotional range of expression that Doctor Hellfern had counseled against subjecting herself to. And its voice was just so…

“Wait,” she said slowly. “That – those voices. They were mine.”

‘ ** _Now let me out_** ,' came the snarl. Red flashed, only this time it didn’t stop. That feeling from before that she remembered, it was coming on, but this time there was no sense of calm detachment. Instead, what accompanied it was pure power, control. It was a conduit, and this pent up rage that this red voice of hers had was pouring out of her like she was simply sieve – black tendrils lashing out about the room around her. The feeling of control was there, but it was alien and she panicked. The panic only fed it as the tendrils frenzied, slinging things around in the room, as they groped at the door, trying to sling it open.

Amongst the chaos, she hear a voice over an intercom. It was the doctor. “Now, Miss Roth, I believe that I did ask you to keep yourself calm. I’m afraid we’ll have to sedate you if you don’t control yourself.”

“I—what’s happening to me?,” shouted the young woman, her voice shaking from fear and adrenaline.

“I’m afraid that knowledge wouldn’t help you in the slightest, Rachel. Now please, contain yourself before your cause any irreparable damage.”

She focused, trying to do as the doctor told her, closing her eyes and trying to block out the rage and ignore her own fear.

It took a few moments, but eventually she reigned everything in until only a small black field radiated off of her. She had a brief moment where she wondered if it would be possible to control all of this, but the thought of the raging power going wild again nearly made her lose control once more so she finally capped off the rest of whatever it was.

Her room was in total disarray. The side table and the two small chairs that had been there were in pieces scattered about. Papers and charts that had been tacked on corkboard were in tatters everywhere. There was a door leading to what she had guessed to be a bathroom, where the sounds of spraying and rushing water could be heard, as water poured out of the room at a quick rate.

A couple of minutes passed before the doctor spoke again. “I’ll come in with someone else and clean up your room. And maybe draw some blood to run a few tests.”

She found herself conflicted about what to think, and Rachel wondered about whether or not to try and bring out one of the voices again, preferably one of the more…agreeable ones. She cast the idea aside for the time being, as she wouldn’t want to do so in front of the doctor.

When he finally did come into her room, he was flanked by two people, one muscled, bald man wearing a white turtle neck with a large overcoat over it and the other person of considerably smaller frame, who was wearing simple scrubs. The first man propped up by the door frame, casting a watchful eye on here while the second rushed immediately into the bathroom, presumably to run damage control.

The doctor, for his part, strolled up to Rachel, syringe already in hand, with several tubes in his breast pocked, no doubt queued up for blood-work to be done.

“I would ask that you try to limit such fits in the future, Miss Roth,” he said sedately. “Healthcare is one thing, but plumbing issues are more troublesome to address here. Particularly ones so extensive.”

She ignored his attitude. “Would you please tell me what’s going on? What’s happened to me?”

“You truly don’t know, do you?” he asked. The doctor’s cold eyes drilled into her.

He hmmed to himself as she shook her head.

 

(Unknown)

The news buzzed in the background, with some anchor talking about a shootout that had happened the night before near a subway in Blüdhaven.

“So I take it Queen’s brat took the bait?” asked a voice. His companion, such as she was, was considerably more talkative than he preferred. He took his time answering her, taking a sip from the glass resting on the arm of his chair and not bothering to turn his head her way.

“Evidently. Have production sped up. I want everything ready for Nightwing’s arrival.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I'm sure that Arsenal/Speedy's characterization may be different than that of what many picture. At this time, I'd like to tell anyone interested that my knowledge is mostly limited to the Teen Titans show (not the one currently airing) and some peripheral encounters with other tv shows and movies I've seen growing up. Thus, I'll be relying on wikis and TV Tropes to supplement my lack of information. This means that characterizations will not be spot on to any particular canon incarnation, but that won't be a problem considering I'll be playing with character development anyway. Thus, this is very AU; I'm sorry if this upsets anyone overmuch.
> 
> Anyway, hope you enjoyed it, sorry again for the wait!


End file.
